Al Mustakillah is a UK-licensed Arabic-language satellite channel beaming its signals to North Africa and the Middle East. UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom says it is considering applying statutory sanctions on the broadcaster for what it states are “particularly serious” breaches of its broadcasting codes. The channel does not broadcast to the UK, and is not […]
The Australian High Court has dealt a damaging blow to the film industry with the dismissal of a copyright infringement appeal case against Internet Service Provider (ISP) iiNet in a landmark ruling. The High Court’s five judges unanimously dismissed the appeal. The court observed that iiNet “had no direct technical power” to prevent its customers […]
Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL have suffered a further blow to plans to launch their own Hulu-like platform for watching TV shows soon after they air. The plan to aggregate their content on an ad-supported site was already opposed by regulators, on grounds of market dominance and now a German court has agreed with that assessment. […]
French broadcasting authority CSA has given its permission to Canal Plus to stop broadcasting the TPS Star channel on DTT. The channel was already withdrawn from ADSL, cable and satellite on April 4th, and has fewer than 10,000 DTT subscribers. CSA’s Francoise Laborde said Canal Plus has prepared a satisfactory alternative for TPS Star DTT […]
Delivering the annual NAB State of the Industry address as the 2012 NAB Show got under way, NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith warned that while there had been success on two major issues facing broadcasters, the industry should never rest on its laurels. “Working in unity – small and large market stations – networks […]
North American satellite operator ViaSat, best known for its satellite-delivered broadband services to American and Canadian users, hit satellite builders Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) with a writ back in February alleging violation of ViaSat’s patents. ViaSat is arguing that it supplied its design concepts to SS/L, and that SS/L then used the designs to win further […]
CASBAA boss Simon Twiston Davies has written to the Indian government protesting at a proposed new tax on international satellite operators working over India. The Indian proposals call for a 10 per cent “royalty” to be levied on foreign satellite communications. But perhaps worse, in the eyes of Twiston Davies, is that India is looking […]
Iranian-funded Press TV, which has already been banned by the UK’s regulator Ofcom, says it will institute legal proceedings against the Bavarian media regulator. The specific allegation argues that Munich’s media regulator has made an “illegal” decision to force SES to take down the controversial broadcaster. The channel went dark at 7pm on April 3 […]
The UK’s Video-on-demand (VOD) co-regulator ATVOD has cut its rates for the second consecutive year, driven by the arrival of new VOD entrants. All broadcasters and publishers of VOD services will have their fees, each paid according to turnover, cut by 3.58% from 1 April. Non-commercial providers including charities will pay an annual of £96 […]
Richard Hooper –a former Deputy Chairman of Ofcom – has published his diagnostic report on how fit for purpose is copyright licensing for the digital age. Hooper was appointed by Business Secretary Vince Cable to lead an independent feasibility study into a Digital Copyright Exchange (DCE) on 22 November. The report is based evidence collected […]